Zhao's family won't beg for state funeral

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The family of China's purged reformist leader Zhao Ziyang say
they won't "beg" for a state funeral, in a contemptuous gesture
towards the party leadership which had kept him under house arrest
for 16 years.

Zhao, a former state premier and party general secretary who
died on Monday aged 85, would ordinarily be entitled to a state
funeral. But nervous about providing a focus for expressions about
the Communist Party's political monopoly, current leaders have been
debating how to play down his passing without offending public
sensibilities.

State President and party chief Hu Jintao and party politburo
member Luo Gan, the senior law-and-order figure in the Chinese
hierarchy, have taken personal charge of the issue during the
seven-day period of mourning before a funeral.

Only one leader, Vice-President Zeng Qinghong, visited Zhao as
he lay dying.

According to family friend Liu Baopu, Zhao's family has decided
not to ask the Government for anything in terms of funeral
arrangements. "The family's decision reflects a sense of pride, for
they refuse to 'beg' the Government," Liu said. "They have not done
so in the past 16 years, and they will not do so now."

But even a private funeral might build into a powerful event.
Flowers are arriving at Zhao's quiet courtyard home, and Chinese
are finding ways to broadcast their sense of loss, despite
tightened censorship. Zhao's death was the biggest topic of the
Beijing University website message board yesterday morning. "If he
had not been forced out, he would most likely have become a second
Gorbachev," one message said.

Zhao's daughter, Wang Yannan, sent out a telling text message by
mobile phone soon after her father died. "He left peacefully this
morning," she said. "He is free at last."

Yesterday police blocked Zhao's former secretary, Bao Tong, from
leaving his house to pay his respects at Zhao's home, and in a
melee Bao's 73-year-old wife was knocked down and taken to hospital
with a broken bone, friends reported.